Machines, such as mining trucks, operate at a worksite to transport material from one location to another. The machine may tend to travel backwards and forwards between a load point and dump or park-up points along a route while mining is underway.
More specifically, during a load-haul-dump cycle, the machine travels from the dump point to the load point, stops for some time at the load point until loading is complete and then travels to the same dump point or a new dump point. It may be required to know a location of the load point for production recording and tracking purposes.
The route taken by the machine from the dump point to the load point and back from the load point to the dump point may either be the same or may vary based on the location of the final dump point. Further, the machine may make stops along the route for other reasons other than for loading, for example, the machine may need to stop to make way for other machines, and so on. In some situations, the load point may not be surveyed, making it challenging to identify the location of the load point. Further, some of the machines may not include payload sensors, due to additional costs associated with the installation of such sensors. Hence, it may be difficult to identify the load points at the worksite.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,302,859 describes a system for determining vehicle loading and unloading. The system comprises an acceleration detector provided on a vehicle, a location detector for detecting the location of the vehicle and a processor that receives information detected by the acceleration detector and location detector and determines whether the detected acceleration is due to vehicle loading, unloading or travel, based on the received information. A timer may be started, when vehicle loading or unloading is determined, such that the amount of time spent loading or unloading the vehicle may be obtained. Also, a condition of a traveled surface may be determined based on information received from the acceleration detector and location detector.